


Lambs of the Slaughter

by Simbalysm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Death, Demonic Possession, Drama, F/M, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27872214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simbalysm/pseuds/Simbalysm
Summary: Humanity is losing the fight against the demonic forces that threaten to corrupt the known world. The fortunate hide behind the stone walls of cities, guarded by forces of hunters and the knowledge of the Men of Letters. The rest are left to fend for themselves. With the legendary angel warriors having long since retreated to their mountain strongholds, and hunters becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the strength and numbers of demons, humans are running out of time and hope.Dean is the eldest son of the Winchester hunting family. A skilled and capable hunter, he travels the continent tracking down and exterminating demons who possess humans. When a hunt goes wrong, Dean is captured and dragged to a demon pit, where he is to be sacrificed in a demonic summoning ritual. Just as he is about to meet a bloody end, he is saved in the most unexpected of ways. Dean's life is then tossed into chaos as he embarks on a dangerous journey with the angel Castiel. With demons hot on their heels and winter falling fast, the two must learn to trust each other as they navigate the horrors of the world around them and within themselves if they want to make it out alive and save their peoples.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 1





	Lambs of the Slaughter

Dean cursed under his breath as his boots slide on the muddy ground for the third time, catching himself by yanking on Impala’s slack reins held in his hand, earning a huff from the mare behind him. He steadied himself, muttering an apology to the horse before moving on through the thick forest brush. Branches slid past his body, leaving streaks of cold rainwater on his worn riding leathers. Readjusting his cloak with his free hand, Dean wrapped the cloth closer to his chilled sides as he pushing into a clearing. Dean let out a huff of his own as they stepped onto the overgrown road. Quickly glancing in both directions, then up at rays of the afternoon sun, muddled through clouds and treetops, and turned northward, his black mare’s hooves crunching over the gravel in a steady pace behind him.

The fall air pricked at his exposed face that peeked out from underneath his dark hood, and his breath came out in steamy puffs as he drudged on. A glance over his shoulder at Impala and Dean saw steam coming from her bridled maw as well. A pang of exhausting went through his legs, and he ached to leap into the mare's leather saddle and ride, letting her swift legs guide them back to a place that was dry, warm, and mostly safe.

Two small forms strapped over Impala’s back shifted with each step she took. The canvas wrapping them had become scuffed by dew and loose pine needles, but Dean’s knots held their place. One of the folds on the larger of the two forms had shifted during the ride, revealing a mop of dirty hair. Dean watched the strands sway with Impala’s movements, a stray gleam of sunlight catching flecks of red on the dark locks. He grimaced slightly, before turning back to the road ahead. Rest would have to wait a little while longer.

~

The sun was barely visible on the horizon when Dean broke through the forest. Dark clouds lurked overhead, breaking up the soft pink and orange hues that spread across the sky. A few villagers were mulling around, and they looked up at him as he approached. Dean raised his chin a bit in response, willing his spine to straighten. Their sunken faces were cold, but Dean watched as their eyes shifted from questioning to quiet melancholy as they fixed on Impala’s back. Dean did not let his stride falter. As he walked between the twin rows of shabby cabins, his own green eyes lingered on the glow of hearths and lanterns light in the windows he passed by. His bones ached in response to the thought of the warmth, but he brushed off. He had a job to finish first.

He stopped in front of one of the cabins, looping Impala’s reins around a fence post that contained a small but neat vegetable garden. Firelight seeped through the single cloudy window. Still, he silently hoped that no one was home. He pushed back his hood, fully exposing his face and his cropped blond hair to the evening air, and shivered as he approached the door.

The paint on the wood was dull and chipped, and he sighed quietly before he halted just a step away from it. A row of jagged symbols had been scorched into the threshold above it, and Dean had to squint to read them in the dying daylight. It was an old incantation, identical to the ones he had noted on the other cabins in this village, one that Dean had seen in too many other villages like this one. He raised a fist to the wood and knocked twice. There was a quick noise of furniture scraping against floorboards. A creak of a lock had Dean hardening his features. The door flew open, and for a heartbeat he let himself savor the warmth that leaked out.

The woman looked up at Dean with large brown eyes. Her hair fell flatly around her bony face, brows drawn together in tentative but hopeful expectance. The expression, stressing the creases of her face, made her look older than she truly was. Dean's eyes glanced over her shoulder, to the man standing by the crumbling fireplace. Her husband, judging by the matching wedding band on his finger, looked back at him with a solemn face, as if he were preparing for Dean to march over to him and strike him. Dean suddenly found his mouth to be too dry.

“Did you find them?” Dean's eyes fell back to the woman's. Her voice had come out in a rasp, as if she hadn’t spoken since he had left three days earlier. Dean did not let himself linger on the thought.

“Lyra,” Dean remembered, his tongue feeling too heavy as it stumbled over her name. He ground his teeth together in an effort to compose himself before he opened his mouth to continue. Lyra was peering past his shoulder, as if looking for something hiding in the dark behind him. Her eyes went wide, and Dean faltered. He offered no resistance as Lyra pushed past him and rushed over to Impala, her pale nightgown fluttering behind her. He watched her fall to her knees at the mare’s side, reaching for the canvas with trembling hands before she hesitated, pulling back to cover her mouth as a sob escaped her throat. She reached again, carefully pulling away the loose cover. Lyra screamed.

Her eldest son’s hair, matted with blood and gore, fell around his face that stared unseeing at the ground. Dean looked away when she reached for the wrap covering her second son, but was unable to drown out her following wail as it too split through his skull. Lyra’s husband had shuffled to the doorway in front of him. Silver lined his deep eyes, and his mouth tightened further into a mournful frown.

“Anderson was possessed by a hellhound,” Dean's voice came out rougher than he meant it to. The older man's forehead creasing was the only indication that he had heard him, “It used him to lure Joshua to the pit, where the rest trapped him and summoned a demon into him.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Dean was unsure whether or not to continue when the man asked softly, “Did they come back? Before the end?” 

“No,” Dean lied, “the summoning wounded them both. They were both gone before the exorcism started.”

He should not have said that, but it was the only comfort he had to offer. He was not about to tell them how Joshua had cried when he had realized that it was his younger brother’s blood in his mouth and on his hands, or how he had dragged himself over to Anderson’s ruined body and begged for the dead boy’s forgiveness, or that the look Dean had seen in Joshua's eyes before he too slipped away had him retching his last meal up all over the bloody summoning circle.

Nodding slowly, the husband finally broke his gaze from his family. He reached into a deep jacket pocket and pulled out a worn pouch. The coins shifted against the leather as he placed it in Dean’s hand, “As my wife promised.”

Dean accepted it with a curt nod, hoping his face did not betray the dirty feeling he felt for doing so. Dean could only watch as tears fell from of the older man's eyes and disappeared into the curls of his beard as they listened to his wife's cries of anguish pierce the empty night's silence.

~

“I am sorry,” Dean said earnestly in front of the garden after he helped the husband untie his son’s bodies from Impala and lay them on the table inside their home. He had tried not to look at the twin empty beds in the corner, both at uneven angles as if they had been shifted closer together in the middle of the night.

The other man only shook his head softly in response, staring blankly at a plant in the garden, as if trying to figure out whether or not it was a weed. Dean chewed on his lip, wracking his brain for something to say, but came up with nothing. Tightening his grip on Impala's reins, he was about to turn away when the man's voice stopped him, “The barn on the edge of the forest is unlocked. The loft is yours for the night.”

Dean pursed his lips together to mask his surprise. Touching the back of his thumb to his brow in a sign of thanks, he wordlessly began to lead his mare down the pathway towards the tree line.

“Hunter,” Dean again paused, looking back. The man had looked up from the plant and was staring at Dean’s chest, as if he could see through his leathers, to the mark that was there, “I would leave before dawn if I were you.”

Dean recognized it for what it was, not a threat, but a warning.

He brushed and wiped down Impala as she drank heartily from a water trough, the lone lantern that hung in the barn casting distorted shadows against the walls. He gave her what little feed he had left, promising her a feast at the next town they came across. Her dark eyes only stared calmly back at him as she finished her meal. Dean drew a pail of water for himself before climbing up to the loft. Sitting on an old milking stool, the hunter rinsed off his face, his neck and his hands before taking a long drink. For a long while, Dean just stared at his rippling reflection in the water, his face contorting with the water as it settled. He blinked, and he could have sworn that his eyes flashed black in the water. The thought made him look away, and he cursed under his breath about not getting enough sleep.

Dean pulled his bag over to him and retrieved a leather bound book. Flipping it open to a blank page, he fished out the stick of charcoal that was tucked into the spine before hovering it over the parchment. A moment passed, and then a minute, before Dean finally brought it down and began to write. He wrote about the hunt, how he had tracked down the pit, the types of demons that had nested there, how he had ambushed them with salt bombs and trapping nets before realizing that all human hosts save for Joshua had been burned out of their bodies, his mind dragging up every detail no matter how morbid or ordinary. He sketched in between the words and on the edges of the pages, drawing out the symbols on the summoning circle, the possession marks on the dead boys’ flesh, the plant that their father had stared so intently at.

His eyes were aching and heavy when he finally flipped the book shut. Tossing the journal back into his pack, he blew out the lantern and collapsed onto a pile of old blankets and stale hay, pulling his cloak overtop him. Dawn was only a few hours away, and he had a long ride ahead of him.

Dean dreamt of fire, chains made of shadows, and eyes that glowed from an endless darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first taste of a new story.  
> It's going to be long, I can already tell.  
> Enjoy and let me know what you think :) I love constructive criticism too.  
> \- Simba


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